


Tired to the Bone

by renecdote



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alfred is the best, Caring, Damian is becoming a good bro, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, Sickfic, Sleep, Tim just wants to sleep, but mostly in secret at this stage, there's a lot of it so I feel like it needs its own tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 16:24:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13551129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: Tim just wants to sleep. His family have other plans. Plans which ultimately better him, but still, it's annoying.





	Tired to the Bone

**Author's Note:**

> This fic emerged out of a tangled mess of three prompts/requests:
> 
> _Anonymous said: “You’ve been asleep for 12 hours and I got a little worried” with Tim and Damian_
> 
> _Anonymous said:“You’re trembling” with Tim & Dami_
> 
> _Anonymous said:“You know, you can stay if you want to” Tim & Damian_
> 
> I'm ignoring canon after Tim returns to Gotham and moves into the penthouse with Dick & Damian because I Do What I Want.

Something is stealing Tim’s comforter. It’s a realisation that comes to him through the sliding fog of not-quite-asleep-but-not-quite-awake. He rolls onto his other side, following the covers creeping off him - are they running away? - and trapping them under his weight. He keeps rolling until he can pull some of the comforter back over him. Snuggling into the thick goose down material as he shifts further over.

Right off the edge of the bed.

“Oof,” he mutters, cheek squashed against the hardwood floor. Pain radiates out from the impact point behind his left ear. He’s lucky the tangle of sheets and blankets and the escaping comforter he brought down with him mostly broke his fall. 

Something pokes him in the side. Once. Twice. An exasperated sigh. More poking.

“Drake, stop being pathetic. Get up.”

Tim grunts his displeasure with that idea and curls into his nest of bed covers. The floor is far from as comfortable as the mattress on his bed, but he’s tired so it will do. If Damian, that annoying little gremlin, would just  _ stop poking him _ .

“You have been asleep for almost twelve hours,” the imperious voice of his rude awakening continues. “Get. Up.”

Tim would flip him the bird but that would require letting go of the death grip he now has on his comforter. He doesn’t want to do that; it might get tugged away again. And it’s  _ cold _ . Why is it so damn cold? He’d been warm when he finally fell into bed… longer ago than he’d thought, if Damian isn’t lying about it having been twelve hours. 

Damian crouches down to grab a fistful of Tim’s precious comforter and Tim hisses at him. This comforter is the only source of warmth left in the world and he will. not. relinquish. it.

Damian clicks his tongue. “You are truly a disgrace, Drake,” he says, “Why Father ever thought you’d be a decent Robin when you’re this lazy, I will never understand.”

But he retreats from the room and leaves Tim alone, so Tim lets the insult wash over him. He’s too tired to care what the demon child thinks of him at the moment anyway. Tired and sore from his collision with the floor. He closes his eyes and pulls the comforter over his face. More sleep sounds like an excellent solution to both those problems.

—

There’s an earthquake. Shaking the buildings and making the earth tremble beneath him. Tim curls into the foetal position and tries to ride it out. But the quake goes on and on and on. It’s  _ never  _ going to end. It’s going to shake apart the buildings and the ground and  _ him. _

A warm voice filters through his terror and Tim frowns. Someone is here with him? Being shaken apart by the earthquake as well?

No. He peels his eyes open. Someone is shaking his shoulder. Tim blinks away blurriness and rolls his head to look up at the figure leaning over him.  _ Bruce _ , he thinks. But no. Too young, too thin, too blatantly concerned.  _ And Bruce is still missing,  _ he reminds himself. Dick, then. 

“-ome on, Timmy,” his older brother is saying. “Time to wake up.”

Tim makes a sound. What precisely that sound is, he’s not completely sure, but it’s something like a groan. Dick stops shaking him when he realises Tim’s awake, smiling down at him instead. It’s a painfully earnest expression.

“Good morning, sleepy head. Well, good afternoon I guess.”

Tim grunts. He sits up, bracing himself with a hand on the floor when the world whirls around him for a moment. Must have sat up too fast. He scoots back to lean against the bed frame. “Wha time ‘s’it?”

“Almost four. Damian said you were still in bed,” Dick says. “Insisted I come check on you.”

“Brat was worried?” Tim asks, brows furrowing so deep it hurts. Or maybe he just has a headache? He did hit his head earlier....

Dick shakes his head fondly. “Well, he didn’t say that exactly…”

“Hm.” Tim runs his fingers through his hair. He grimace at how tangled it is from sweat. Must have been that weird nightmare he was having when Dick woke him up, he figures. He shakes away the residual images of the world crumbling apart beneath him and says, “Whatever. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” The brat may not have been, but Dick is definitely worried. And he doesn’t even bother hiding it. Tim has to shove away a flash of irritation that Dick doesn’t have a right to worry over him anymore; that’s not fair on Dick. “It’s unlike you to sleep for so long.”

“I was tired.” Even as he says it, he has to fight back a yawn. Maybe past tense wasn’t the best way to phrase that. God, did Alfred slip him a sleeping pill last night that he doesn’t remember? Tim can’t recall the last time he was this groggy in the morning… afternoon… whatever time it is. Especially not after waking up from a nightmare. Usually those have him jolting awake in a cold sweat, adrenaline pumping through his body at double speed. He only feels warm and lethargic now though. Odd…

His throat hurts when he swallows. Tim frowns. Was he screaming? He doesn’t remember that. But then again he rarely does. 

“It’s a little late for breakfast… or lunch,” Dick says, reaching out to help Tim stand. “But I think Alfred was talking about making smoothies, and it was heavily implied we’d all be having one.”

His voice is fond. A similar wave of emotion washes over Tim, leaving him feeling strangely heady. He missed Alfred, while he was gone, more than he thought he would. And not just for his cooking. 

“Alright,” he says and lets Dick pull him to his feet. 

\--

The brat is eyeing him. Tim tries to ignore it as he sinks down on the penthouse’s ridiculously white leather lounge. How does it stay so white? Surely Batman must have bled on it at some point. Did Alfred just get it reupholstered? If so, how did he explain the stain to the people who did it? Are there reupholsterers out there who know Bruce Wayne is Batman but have been bribed to keep their mouths shut by his butler? How much would it even take to bribe a-?

“Tt. Are you trembling, Drake? Not even able to hold up a single glass? Pathetic.”

Tim’s thoughts snap back to the present. The cheesy sitcom laughter coming from the TV. The condensation from his cold glass sliding down his wrist. The throb of his head when he turns to see what shattered his musings about the lounge. Damian, still eyeing him from his position on the ground, bent over a sketchpad on the coffee table. 

“What?” Tim snaps. His fingers tighten around his glass. His head throbs. His arms prickle with sudden goosebumps. 

Damian’s gaze slides over Tim’s shoulder, toward the kitchen, before dropping back to his sketchpad. “Nothing,” he says. He sounds irritated. Tim turns to look over his shoulder, sees Dick helping Alfred put away clean dishes from the dishwasher. Dick says something, laughs, and Alfred swats him with a dish towel on his way to put away glasses. 

Tim should probably help. He hasn’t really done anything to help out since he’s been staying here. Which hasn’t been that long, only a few days, hopefully won’t be much longer, only a few more days. But now that Dick believes him, now that he and Alfred (and even the demon brat) are helping find Bruce, Tim feels like he should do something to help in return. To earn his keep. He leans forward and sets his smoothie on the coffee table. The movement feels strangely disjointed, like his visual feed is half a second behind his body. The  _ clink _ of glass against glass sounds strangely loud. Damian is watching him again. Still.

Tim stands up and.

That’s it. 

That’s all.

Because he stands up and then he blacks out.

\--

He’s cold. It’s the first sensation he comes to feeling. Then the thick blanket over his chest and the bright fluorescent light against his eyelids. They rekindle his headache and he groans. That just makes his throat hurt. This time the groan is internal.

The mattress beneath his aching body is firm and, if the lights weren’t a give away, that would be enough to tell Tim he’s not in his bed in the penthouse. And since with their family it’s probably not a hospital, that means…

The medical unit in the bunker comes into focus when he opens his eyes. His eyelids slide back down almost immediately, leaden with exhaustion, and Tim has to blink several times to clear away the fog from sleep. There’s no tug of an IV when he moves his arm, so he sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed to stand.

Alfred is by his side immediately, putting a supporting hand on Tim’s shoulder as he says, “Easy, Master Timothy, you’re not going anywhere just yet.”

Tim doesn’t understand. He’d been -  _ is _ \- fine. Unable to shake off the lingering fatigue since he’d woken up, but otherwise fine. And now he’s being kept in med bay because he… what? Fainted? His cheeks burn. Damian is never going to let him live that down.

“I’m fine, Alfred,” Tim tries, pulling out the most reassuring smile he can muster. It’s harder than it should be; he feels drained of energy. “Just forgot to eat after patrol last night, a bit of low blood sugar is all…”   
  
Alfred quells his attempts to brush off the incident and get up with a stern look. His hand tightens on Tim’s shoulder, gently pushing him to lie back down. “You are not fine,” he says, brandishing a thermometer like one would brandish a sword. “And I suspect low blood sugar is the least of it.”

Tim sighs and resigns himself to a full medical examination. It’s better not to argue with Alfred sometimes. Most of the time. Tim remembers protesting a medical check after a brutal patrol once and found all his school lunch snacks replaced with salad makings for a week. Not even a proper salad, just the ingredients to toss on together. It hadn’t been hard to deduce the underlying message of that one.

The thermometer beeps and Alfred gives an unimpressed “hmm” as he reads it. “102.3,” he says. “You had no earlier indication you were sick?”

Tired. Achy. Sore throat. Dizziness. Headache. Tim winces. “Uhh… No?”

Alfred manages to look even more unimpressed. Tim braces himself for a lecture, but Alfred just shakes his head wearily and pats his shoulder. “It’s probably just the flu. Plenty of rest and fluids,” he orders. “We don’t want a repeat of earlier.”

Tim nods. Passing out was… not fun. Even more so because it had been in front of Damian. He’s the last person Tim wants to show weakness in front of. 

“You’re lucky you didn’t crack your head open on the coffee table,” Alfred tells him. His lips purse. “If Master Damian had not been there…”

The idea of feeling gratitude toward or being indebted to Damian makes Tim’s stomach twist. “I’m sorry, okay?” he says, hating how defensive it comes out. “I didn’t know I was sick.”

“If you did, would you have told anyone?” 

Tim’s silence hangs guiltily in the air. 

Alfred sighs and turns to begin packing the thermometer back in its box. This med bay is set up slightly differently to the one in the Cave and Tim watches idly as Alfred puts things away. The thermometer in a draw. Smelling salts in a cupboard to the left. The blanket Tim had woken up under is folded neatly at the end of the bed.

Relieved that he’s not going to be kept down here, Tim pushes himself off the bed, bracing himself with a hand on the bedside table when he sways slightly. Alfred, finished tidying up, takes his arm to help him back upstairs. Tim would shrug him off if it didn’t feel rude to reject help from Alfred. And if he was sure he could make it up to the penthouse under his own steam.

“There’s one more thing,” Alfred says as the elevator doors close on them. His voice is serious.

And Tim knows immediately what that one more thing is. He winces. “I can explain…”

“I certainly hope so.” Alfred’s gaze could cut diamond. “Since you weren’t missing a vital organ last time I saw you.”

“It’s not that vital…” Another stern look (he feels like he’s getting a lot of those) shuts down that weak line of protest. His shoulders hunch as he sags against the elevator wall. Thinking about all the compromises he made working with Ra’s, his spleen seems like the least of his losses.

Alfred’s face softens. “We can talk about that when you’re better,” he says. “You just focus on resting and getting over this flu - and next year we’ll make sure you get your shot.”

—

It’s not the flu. Tim has been lying in bed, wallowing in misery, for almost two weeks now, too exhausted to go much further than the lounge. The flu doesn’t last this long. And Tim’s a little fuzzy on the last time he was laid up with the flu but he’s sure it didn’t make him this damn tired.

“I’m going to do a blood test,” Alfred tells him, setting down a needle with the bowl of soup he’s brought Tim.

Tim forces himself to sit up, feeling sluggish and worn out by even that. “You think it’s something serious?” he finds himself asking. He’s not sure if he’s worried or if the persistent fever and malaise are just messing with his head. He hates being stuck in bed, but he doesn’t have the energy for much else. Even though all he seems to do is sleep, his body keeps demanding more of it. No amount of food or sugar or caffeine has succeeding in penetrating the fog of fatigue that weighs down his limbs.

“I think it’s not the flu,” Alfred replies, which really isn’t an answer but Tim accepts it. He offers his arm and lets Alfred put a cuff around it and stick the needle in his arm. 

“Poison?” he suggests, thinking back to the comprehensive databases of Ways To Murder People that he’d had access to while with the League of Assassins. And the former assassin living two rooms down. He doesn’t really feel like he’s slowly dying but…

Alfred frowns at him. “Eat your soup, Master Timothy.”

Tim isn’t hungry, but he eats the soup.   


And then, predictably, he sleeps some more.

\--

“The good news,” Dick proclaims, flopping onto the lounge at Tim’s feet. He lifts them into his lap and absently rubs Tim’s leg over the blanket he’s cocooned in. “Is that it’s not poison.”   
  
“And the bad news?” Tim dares to ask, glancing up at Alfred as the butler joins them. 

“ Mononucleosis,” Alfred reports. 

Tim stares between him and Dick. Mono? That’s better than poison but… He’s going to be laid up for several more weeks. Months, even. No patrol. No casework. No finding his own place to set up base. 

More Damian.

Tim lets his head thump back against the arm of the lounge. 

“At least we don’t have to worry about an enlarged spleen,” Tim tries. He deflates at the flat looks he get. Yeah, not really much of a positive. Probably the opposite of one, actually, since the lack of spleen probably means this virus is hitting him ten times harder than it would otherwise. God. He really can’t afford this weakness right now.

And he really can’t handle being cooped up with the brat for so long. 

“You are vain to think anyone would worry over you at all, Drake.”

Speak of the devil…

“Damian, stop it,” Dick snaps. Tim feels a faint curling of warmth that Dick would still defend him. It dies a moment later when he realises it’s probably just part of his efforts to teach the kid how to be a good person. 

No. Tim shouldn’t think like that. Dick still loves him, they’re still brothers, still close(ish). He knows that. It’s just. The fever. The exhaustion. This illness.

“Dick, it’s fine,” Tim says, cutting off the furious whispering between him and Damian as he tries to get Damian to apologize. He’s just… tired is an understatement. It’s not just the physical tiredness, it’s deeper. He’d been running on fumes chasing hope around the globe to get Bruce back, and as soon as he finds some good news and goes home, he falls sick. It’s just so typical of his life lately. Every time it’s looking good, the universe hands him another thing to drag him back down.

“Tim?”

Tim flips his blanket over his face and squeezes his eyes shut. “I just want to be alone. For a bit.” A hesitant beat from Alfred and Dick that is almost tangible and he adds, “I’m tired, I’m going to have a nap.”

He senses the exchange of looks he can’t see and then Alfred says, “of course, Master Timothy, yell out if you need anything”. Tim’s feet are removed from Dick’s lap and dropped on the lounge with a final squeeze, then footsteps squeak across the tile toward the kitchen. Two sets. Until Dick calls back, “Come on, Damian, leave him alone.”

The muttered “sorry, Drake” before the brat follows after Dick and Alfred is probably a hallucination. Or wishful thinking.

—

It’s the middle of the night and Tim’s not really awake, but he’s close enough to it to know there’s someone in the room with him. The person’s clothes whisper through the darkness when they shift. Something cold brushes over Tim’s forehead. Wonderful. Comforting. Fleeting. He thinks he makes a sound.

Then comes the furious whispers of fabric against fabric as the person realises they’ve disturbed him. Tim still isn’t sure who it is, but the person murmurs something indistinct and steps back from the bed. Taking the cool, the wonderful, the comfort with them.

“No.” Tim reaches out, catches a hand. Manages to say through the fog of sleep crawling back over him, “S’nice. Y’can stay… if you… want…”

The figure hesitates, then settles back into the chair beside Tim’s bed.

It’s probably Dick. 

Have Dick’s fingers always been that small? That cool? 

Hm. Must be his mind playing tricks on him.

\--

Tim is dosing when his bedroom door opens. He’d probably be sleeping if he could find a position comfortable enough, but even with one of the best mattresses money can buy, his joints and muscles ache. 

It’s daytime but any sunlight is blocked out by the room’s blackout blinds, so the only way Tim can guess at his visitor is by the light slipping in from the hall behind them. A long shadow stretching into the room, but a stature that barely clears halfway up the doorframe. 

_ Damian _ . Tim closes his eyes and feigns sleep. Whatever the brat wants he’s too tired and sick to deal with it. Footsteps draw nearer but stop just as Tim tenses in preparation for his bed covers being ripped off. He holds his breath while Damian stands there, seconds stretching out to almost a minute before there’s the quietest of sounds and then footsteps back toward the doorway. The door shuts with a click and Tim peels his eyes open. That was… bizarre.

It gets more so. There’s a box on the bedside table. Small, flat, black. Like a jewellery box. Tim frowns. A… gift? From Damian?

No. Surely not. Must be sabotage of some kind. He probably shouldn’t even open it without doing an intensive search for poisons or booby traps that will literally blow up in his face. But. You know what they say about curiosity and cats. He reaches for the box with a shaky hand.

It’s a bracelet. Braided black leather connected to a flat silver disk. Tim twists the cord around his fingers and brushes his fingers over the engraving. His name. A contact number for Alfred. And clearly written at the top:  NO SPLEEN .

Huh. How… thoughtful. Caring. Maybe Damian was just the delivery boy? Because the only other possibility is that the brat  _ cares _ and Tim’s brain is way too frazzled to analyse that at the moment. That’s a puzzle for another day.

For today, Tim clips the bracelet around his wrist and rolls back over, snuggling into his comforter. The silver disk is cool against his cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [here](tantalum-cobalt.tumblr.com%22).


End file.
